Player needs JavaScript turned on.

The Gospel Changes What Comes Out of Our Mouth

Philippians 2:14-18

 

Christians often talk more about things that don’t really matter then they talk about things that are of ____________ importance! 

 

The C_________________________ Christians Face Now Living in a Crooked Place    V. 15b           

 

Philippi was one of those ‘anything goes’ places in the ancient world, where crookedness and perversion _________________.

 

What should ___________ Come out of the Christians Mouth:

Grumbling & Arguing                     V. 14

 

For grumbling is terrible, yes, a terrible thing; it is akin to blasphemy…The grumbler is ungrateful to God, and one who is ungrateful to God is a blasphemer.                           -John Chrysostom, 344-407

 

In the Bible a grumbling and argumentative spirit is often portrayed as a _____________________ problem.

 

I Samuel 10:26-27                 

 

What Should Come out of the Christians Mouth:

The G_________________               V. 15-16

 

Verse 16 says “Hold firmly” the message of life. Perhaps it would be better translated “Hold _______________” the message of life.

 

The Celebration Christians Have Coming _________ This Life

V. 16b-18

 

Those who are wise will shine like the bright expanse in the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.    -Daniel 12:3

 

 

One day, the good providence of God brought me to Bedford because I had work there. In one of the streets of that town, I came where there were three or four poor women sitting at a door in the sun, and talking about the things of God. I wanted to hear what they were saying, so I drew closer so I could overhear them without them knowing it…

 

Their talk was about a new birth, the work of God on their hearts, also of how they had become convinced of their own miserable state by nature. They talked about how God had visited their souls with His live in the Lord Jesus, and how His Word and its promises had refreshed and comforted them and supported them against the temptations of the Devil.

 

Moreover, they talked with each other about specific suggestions and temptations of Satan, and how they had not given up under his assaults. They discussed their own sinful hearts, their unbelief, and their lack of any righteousness of their own that would do them any good.

 

I thought they spoke as if joy did make them speak!  They spoke with such pleasantness of Scripture language, and with such appearance of grace in all they said, that they were to me as if they had found a new world, as if they were people who dwelled alone, and were not to be reckoned among their neighbors.

 

At this I felt my own heart begin to shake…I saw that in all my thoughts about religion and salvation, the new birth did not enter into my mind, neither did I know the comfort of the Word and its promises, nor the deceitfulness and treachery of my own wicked heart. As for secret thoughts, I took no notice of them; neither did I understand what Satan’s temptations were, nor how they were to be withstood and resisted.

 

Thus therefore, when I had heard and considered what they said, I left them, and went about my employment again, but their talk and discourse went with me, for I was greatly affected with their words.

 

By them I was convinced that I did not have what they had, the tokens of a truly godly man, and also because of them I was convinced of the happy and blessed condition of him that was such a one.

 

-John Bunyan, Grace abounding to the Chief of Sinners